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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Austrian composer (b. 27 January 1756 in Salzburg; d. 5 December 1791 in Vienna), born Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

For Tchaikovsky, Mozart's music was like an incarnation of divine beauty in a human form that awakened love, rather than awe (as was the case with Beethoven), and in a truly remarkable diary entry of 1886 (quoted below) he actually calls Mozart a "musical Christ". This adoration of Mozart had its roots in Tchaikovsky's childhood, for when he was not yet five he was moved to tears when he heard the orchestrion that his father had proudly brought from Saint Petersburg play the melody of Zerlina's aria "Vedrai, carino" from Don Giovanni. Little Petr was so fascinated by this melody, even coming from a 'lifeless' mechanical instrument, that his mother showed him how to play it on the piano. It was on this day that his musical gifts were discovered [1].

However, as he admitted in his brief Autobiography of 1889 (TH 317), there was a period in his early adolescence when his enthusiasm for Italian bel canto opera, combined with his lack of exposure to the classical canon of German music, had made him suspicious even of Mozart. It was then that at the age of 16 or 17 he happened to attend a performance of Don Giovanni almost by chance. As he recalled in this Autobiography: "It was a pure revelation to me. It is impossible for me to describe the enthusiasm, the delight and intoxication which I was seized by. During several weeks I did nothing but play this opera through from the piano score; even as I fell asleep I could not part with this divine music, which pursued me long into my happy dreams […] Amongst the great masters, Mozart is the one to whom I feel most attracted; it has been so ever since that day and it will always be like that" [2]. This "revelation" of the music of Don Giovanni on the threshold of adulthood was a crucial factor in his decision a few years later to leave behind him the security of a career in the civil service and to aspire to become a composer. As he later confessed to Nadezhda von Meck in a letter 790 from 1878 (quoted in more detail below): "The music of Don Giovanni was the first music which produced a tremendous impression on me. It awoke a holy enthusiasm in me, which would later bear fruit. Through this music I entered that world of artistic beauty inhabited only by the greatest geniuses […] It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world" [3].

In his music review articles during the 1870s Tchaikovsky shared with readers his admiration for many works by Mozart, but the one which he invariably dwelt on most enthusiastically was Don Giovanni, "the greatest of all operas" (see the references listed below). Moreover, as Herman Laroche would later recall, Mozart was for Tchaikovsky "the ideal musician and artist in all aspects" [4]—in particular, he admired Mozart for his spontaneous creativity, which did not, however, exclude a professional attitude to work and allowed Mozart to write a lot of his music to commission, as Tchaikovsky did, too. Similarly, the child-like goodness and lack of envy or spite in Mozart's character were qualities which he himself aspired to, and it is not surprising that he was so interested in reading about Mozart's life, especially in Otto Jahn's excellent 1856 biography, which, according to Laroche, never left Tchaikovsky's table.

Cover of the first edition (1887) of Tchaikovsky's Suite No 4 ("Mozartiana"), Op. 61, with an inscription to the conductor Max Erdmannsdörfer

In 1875, Tchaikovsky translated the libretto of Le Nozze di Figaro into Russian for a student performance at the Moscow Conservatory, and this was eventually published by Petr Jurgenson together with the piano-vocal score of Mozart's opera (see TH 188). Tchaikovsky liked Figaro very much and went to hear it at least three times during his stay in Paris in 1883. In a letter to Sergei Taneev, who was also an admirer of Mozart, he recorded his impressions of one of these performances: "My God! how divinely beautiful this music is in its unassuming simplicity!" [5]

The 100th anniversary of the première of Don Giovanni was due to be celebrated across Europe in 1887, and already a few years earlier, in the summer of 1884, Tchaikovsky was considering writing an article, in collaboration with Laroche, to pay tribute to Mozart. This article was never written, but Tchaikovsky's determination to contribute something to mark the centenary of Don Giovanni was spurred on by a memorable meeting with Pauline Viardot in Paris on 12 June 1886 [N.S.], when she showed him the original score of the opera in Mozart's own hand! From letters to Taneev it seems that Tchaikovsky had been intending to contribute three 'gifts' for this notable centenary the following year: a Mozart suite, a translation of the libretto of Don Giovanni, and an essay. In the end only the first of these projects came to fruition: the Suite No 4 ("Mozartiana") [6].

As Laroche observes in the Foreword to his 1898 edition of Tchaikovsky's music feuilleton articles, it is significant that at the last concert which the composer conducted before his death (the concert took place in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October 1893), alongside the première of the Symphony No. 6 the audience was treated to a performance of the dances from Mozart's Idomeneo, which Tchaikovsky had recently discovered for himself. This seemingly so strange decision to combine one of the most melancholic and tragic works in the symphonic repertoire with these stylized, baroque dances may perhaps be read in the light of what Tchaikovsky told Mme von Meck in the letter of 11/23 January 1883 quoted below under "General reflections".

Arrangements of works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

• Suite No. 4, "Mozartiana", Op. 61 (1887) — arrangements of four pieces by Mozart
• Night, vocal quartet with piano accompaniment (1893), TH 88 — based on music from Mozart's Fantasie in C minor for piano (KV 475).

Translations of works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

• Le Nozze di Figaro, opera buffa in 4 acts, KV 492 (1786) — Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto translated into Russian by Tchaikovsky as The Marriage of Figaro (Свадьба Фигаро), TH 188 (1875, published in 1884).

General reflections on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
(bold references indicate particularly detailed or interesting references)

In Tchaikovsky's music review articles:

• TH 262 — Tchaikovsky praises Mozart's mastery in "musical and dramatic characterization", especially in his "immortally beautiful" opera Don Giovanni.
• TH 266 — refers to Mozart's facility in composing, but emphasizes that this did not stop him from working hard to polish the six string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn.
• TH 276 — emphasizes again how Mozart was unsurpassed as an opera composer.
• TH 284 — compares Mozart as the archetype of a "spontaneously creating artist" with composers like Wagner and Dargomyzhskii who had been "corroded" by reflection and various theories of dramatic veracity.
• TH 305 — compares the "simplicity" and "inexhaustible richness" of Mozart's music to the "bombastic" style of Liszt.

In Tchaikovsky's letters:

• Letter 790 to Nadezhda von Meck, 16/28 March 1878 [7]:

"Why don't you love Mozart? With regard to him we clearly disagree with one another, my dear friend. I not only love Mozart – I worship him. For me, the best opera ever written is Don Giovanni. With your fine musical sensitivity, you surely ought to love this ideally pure artist. True, Mozart did expend his energies far too liberally and very often wrote not following his inspiration but out of necessity. However, do read his biography which has been excellently written by Otto Jahn, and you will see that he had no choice but to do so. Besides, Beethoven and Bach, too, wrote lots of weak works which are unworthy of standing alongside their masterpieces. Such was the force of circumstances that they sometimes had to turn their art into a trade. But take Mozart's operas, two or three of his symphonies, his Requiem, his six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, and the C minor quartet. Do you really not find anything beautiful in all this? True, Mozart does not grip one as profoundly as Beethoven; his sweep is not as broad. Just as in life he was a carefree child to the end of his days, so in his music there is no subjective tragedy of the kind which reveals itself so strongly and powerfully in Beethoven. However, this did not prevent him from creating an objectively tragic figure, indeed the most striking and powerful human figure ever portrayed through music. I mean Donna Anna in Don Giovanni […]

For God's sake, do read the bulky but very interesting book on Mozart by Otto Jahn. You will see from it what a wonderful, irreproachable, infinitely kind, and angelically pure nature he had. He was the incarnation of the ideal of a great artist who creates because of an unconscious stirring of his genius. He wrote music as the nightingales sing, i.e. without pausing to think, without doing violence to himself. […] Everyone loved him; he had the most marvellous, cheerful, and equable temperament. There was not a whit of pride in him. Whenever he met Haydn, he would express his love and veneration for him in the most sincere and fervent terms. The purity of his soul was absolute. He knew neither envy nor vengefulness nor spite, and I think that all this can be heard in his music, which has reconciling, clarifying, and caressing properties […]

I could go on talking to you forever about this radiant genius for whom I cherish a kind of cult […] Apart from you, I have met a few people before who had a fine understanding of music and loved it passionately, but who at the same time would not acknowledge Mozart. In vain I tried to open their eyes to the beauty of his music, but never before have I so wanted to win over someone to the ranks of Mozart's admirers as I would like to win you over now. Of course, in our musical sympathies it is very often accidental circumstances which play an important part. The music of Don Giovanni was the first music which produced a tremendous impression on me. It awoke a holy enthusiasm in me, which would later bear fruit. Through this music I entered that world of artistic beauty inhabited only by the greatest geniuses. Before that I had only known Italian opera. It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world"

• Letter 2195 to Nadezhda von Meck, 11/23 January 1883 :

"I have just returned from the Opéra-Comique [in Paris], where I have heard Le Mariage de Figaro twice, and if any more performances are scheduled, I will carry on going to them. I know that my veneration for Mozart surprises you, my dear friend. In fact, I, too, am surprised that such a broken, morally and mentally not quite sound person as myself has managed to preserve the ability to enjoy Mozart, who does not have the depth nor the strength of Beethoven, nor the warmth and passion of Schumann, nor the splendour of Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Wagner, etc. Perhaps this is because Don Giovanni was the first opera which served as a spur to my musical feeling and opened up before me a whole hitherto unknown horizon of the highest musical beauty? Mozart does not overwhelm or stagger me—instead, he captivates me, gives me joy and warmth. When I listen to his music, it is as if I am doing a good deed. It is difficult to convey what exactly his beneficial influence on me consists of, but it is undoubtedly beneficial, and the longer I live, the closer I get to know him, the more I love him."

In Tchaikovsky's diaries:

• Diary entry for 20 September/2 October 1886, in which Tchaikovsky first considers his attitude to Beethoven:

"I bow before the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude towards him reminds me of how I felt as a child with regard to God, Lord of Sabaoth. I felt (and even now my feelings have not changed) a sense of amazement before Him, but at the same time also fear. He created heaven and earth, just as He created me, but still, even though I cringe before Him, there is no love. Christ, on the contrary, awakens precisely and exclusively feelings of love. Yes, He was God, but at the same time a man. He suffered like us. We are sorry for Him, we love in Him His ideal human side. And if Beethoven occupies in my heart a place analogous to God, Lord of Sabaoth, then Mozart I love as a musical Christ. Besides, he lived almost like Christ did. I think there is nothing sacrilegious in such a comparison. Mozart was a being so angelical and child-like in his purity, his music is so full of unattainably divine beauty, that if there is someone whom one can mention with the same breath as Christ, then it is he. […] It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has […] In Mozart I love everything because we love everything in a person whom we truly love. Above all I love Don Giovanni, as it was thanks to this work that I found out what music is. Until then (till the age of 17) I had known nothing apart from pleasant Italian semi-music. Of course, whilst I do love everything in Mozart, I won't claim that every minor work of his is a masterpiece. No! I know that any one of his sonatas, for example, is not a great work, and yet I love every sonata of his precisely because it is his – because this musical Christ touched it with his radiant hand" [8]

On specific works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
(bold references indicate particularly detailed or interesting references)

• Die Zauberflöte, opera, KV 620 (1791) — see TH 305
• Don Giovanni, opera, KV 527 (1787) — see TH 262, TH 276, TH 284; Letter 790 to Nadezhda von Meck, 16/28 March 1878 (quoted above several times).
• Le Nozze di Figaro, opera, KV 492 (1786) — see Letter 2253 to Sergei Taneev, 1/13–3/15 April 1883, quoted above.
• Requiem, KV 626 (1791) — see TH 279
• String Quintet in G minor, KV 516 (1788) — letter 790 to Nadezhda von Meck, 16/28 March 1878 [9]
• Symphony No. 41 in C major ("Jupiter"), KV 551 (1788) — TH 300

Notes:

1. Nina Berberova, Чайковский. История одинокой жизни (Berlin, 1936), chapter II [back]
2. Translation by Luis Sundkvist. In Vol. I of The Tchaikovsky Handbook, Alexander Poznansky and Brett Langston quote an interview which Tchaikovsky gave to a reporter from the newspaper Odesskie novosti in January 1893, and in which he describes this experience in much the same terms: "I was sixteen when I first heard Mozart's Don Giovanni. It was a revelation to me. I am not capable of describing the overwhelming power of the impression that I experienced. It is because of this fact, perhaps, that of all great composers, it is Mozart for whom I feel the most tender love" (p.524, n.9) [back]
3. Letter 790 to Nadezhda von Meck, 16/28 March 1878. Translation by Luis Sundkvist [back]
4. Quoted by David Brown, Tchaikovsky Remembered (London, 1993), p.237 [back]
5. Letter 2253 to Sergei Taneev, 1/13–3/15 April 1883 [back]
6. See Lucinde Lauer, 'Čajkovskij und Mozart—ein Leserbrief Čajkovskijs von 1881', Čajkovskij-Studien, Heft 3 (Mainz, 1998), pp.535–538 (538) [back]
7. Translation by Luis Sundkvist [back]
8. Translation by Luis Sundkvist [back]
9. "In his chamber music Mozart captivates one by the charm and purity of his facture, by the amazing beauty of his voice leading, but sometimes one does come across things which bring tears to your eyes. I would like to point out to you the Adagio from the G minor quintet. Nobody before or after has expressed so beautifully in music feelings of resigned, helpless grief. When Laub played this Adagio, I would always hide in the remotest corner of the hall so that no one could see what effect his music had on me" — translation by Luis Sundkvis. [back]

References:

• Liudmila Korabel'nikova, entry on Mozart for the Belcanto Tchaikovsky Pages (in Russian):